Like all nerds, I revere Brian Eno. When MusicRadar asked for a column about him, I jumped on it. They wanted something about his generative music, and Music For Airports was the obvious choice.
Category Archives: Autobio
MusicRadar column on one of Bob Dylan’s greatest hits
To tie in with the new Dylan movie, MusicRadar asked me to analyze “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” My first choice would have been “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”, my favorite Dylan song and one of my favorite songs by anyone ever, but I was happy to go with their request too, it’s a …
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Things I wrote in 2024
It has been a big year for my writing life. My work life continues to consist of badly paid contingent faculty work, but hope springs eternal. So here’s a list of things I wrote and what I am hoping happens as a result.
My year in pop aural skills teaching
This year, in addition to teaching my first NYU pop music theory class, I also taught two semesters of pop aural skills. If you didn’t go through a university music program, you may not know what aural skills class involves. Traditionally, you identify chords and intervals by ear, practice sight-singing, and do dictation (meaning, you …
Modern Band Music Theory
I met Dr Jim Frankel, the founder of MusicFirst, back when I was a grad student. We have been mutual admirers in a passive way since then. It was a pleasant surprise when, over the summer, he asked me to contribute to their new Modern Band curriculum, specifically, the music theory component. It’s now being …
Black Peter
The other night at Rosh Hashonah dinner, my stepbrother was playing my guitar and found his way into “Black Peter.” This was not because he had ever sat down and learned it, but because it’s embedded so deeply in his unconscious that he could teach it to himself in real time. This is yet another …
The Grateful Dead as improv comedy
One of the Grateful Dead’s most endearing qualities is their self-deprecating sense of humor. They are easy to make fun of, too.
Scarlet>Fire 5/8/77
Did the Grateful Dead play their best show at Cornell University’s Barton Hall on May 8th, 1977? True connoisseurs usually say no, pointing instead to something from the peak years between 1969 and 1974 (or, if they are contrarians, something from the Brent era). The argument is that Cornell only got so hyped up because …
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
Long before I knew who Duke Ellington was, I adored a Grateful Dead song vaguely named after one of his early hits. I was most attached to the Brent-era version on Without A Net: This is not the Dead at their absolute best. Jerry sounds like he’s about 95 years old, and some of those …
I built a track out of Grateful Dead jamming
The Dead recorded a bunch of rehearsals and jams while making Blues For Allah. John Hilgarth helpfully compiled and annotated them. A Reddit commenter pointed me to “Descent Into A Spacy Place”, which is farther out harmonically than the Dead usually get. I heard a lot of interesting ideas there, and I wanted to see …
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